Involvement in Cultural System in the Netherlands: Its Measurement and Social Correlates

Abstract

A Guttman type scale, constructed to assess direction and intensity of cultural involvement, was applied to a probability sample of 1,297 adult inhabitants of 85 communities in The Netherlands. The scale correlates positively with religious denomination, educational level, intensity of contacts with mass communication media, and social participation in organizations. Living in big cities, mixed marriages, migration, and symptoms of reference-group disintegration are all associated with extreme scores on scale. People with these attributes either get more involved in cultural system than average, or they lose conventional beliefs and convictions. The theories of social confrontation, cultural contacts, and social upheaval are discussed to account for these associations. T HE literature on social participation has grown in years following Stuart Chapin's construction of scale measuring intensity of participation in formal institutions and organizations. Yet there is one dimension that has been neglected so far: degree of participation in cultural heritage, involvement in beliefs, creeds, and convictions on which society is built, around which culture-pattern is organized. Due to lack of an appropriate technique of measuring this subtle dimension, empirical research in area has been rare or not existent. This in spite of patent need for quantitative study of degree of involvement; the inner loneliness concepts of social psychiatry as well as the anomie-concepts of social pathologists make a development of a measuring device in this field highly desirable. A sociological theorist might welcome new insights he would win from similar research into dynamic aspects of social structure. In our attempt to meet these needs, we were interested in individual counterpart of collective concept of culture: weltanschauung, philosophy of life, W. James' concept of centre of personal energy and of spiritual self and, finally, Sheriff and Cantril's concept of ego-involvement helped to structure our thoughts. Projected onto an individual plane, concept of culture had to be modified from general concept as used in cultural anthro-